


Willow River: Ryan's First Hunt

by istie



Series: Willow River [6]
Category: Buzzfeed The Try Guys (Web Series), Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Monster Hunters, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Buzzfeed Unsolved Cinematic Universe - Freeform, M/M, Monster of the Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-05-23 23:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14943728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istie/pseuds/istie
Summary: In the strange little town of Willow River, three people go missing on Christmas Eve.  Ryan Bergara was the last one to see them.  On Christmas Day, the town lets him in on its secrets, and he is inducted into the Willow Guard, so that he can help get them back.





	1. December 25-28, 2019

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the ongoing Willow River Monster of the Week campaign, but it is written solely by me, @istie: it is a sidebar, NPC-only adventure, diving into the backstory of Ryan coming to Willow River and learning about its secrets. As such, there are no rolls to be edited out: this is basically fanfic of my own D&D campaign...

It was well past sunset by the time Ryan left the Spirit of the Lake, and snow was falling again. Willow River was well on its way to a record snowfall this year. He'd spent his afternoon letting his tea get cold, as he was re-introduced to a dozen people – all residents of Willow River he had met before, of course, with a couple exceptions: he hadn't had the opportunity to meet either of the doctors at the medical clinic, and he'd only said hello to Becky Habersberger in passing. But everyone else who sat in Steven, Andrew, and Adam's living room was familiar to him: or at least, so he'd thought.

It turns out they all hunted monsters.

In Willow River.

Regularly.

Ryan still felt like his world had tilted about thirty degrees. Everything he'd suspected, his whole life, was _true_ : as much as he'd hoped he'd prove it eventually, he hadn't expected it to... fall into his lap quite like this.

As far as the Willow Guard (“Real imaginative name, folks,” he'd groused, “you couldn't even make it a reference to something?” No, apparently the name had been around longer than any of them remembered, and it was the one tradition that didn't seem to need breaking) could tell, Ash, Nic, and Christine had straight-up been abducted. He wasn't the only one who had seen the lights in the sky around two in the morning: Andrew had seen them, too, and Francesca.

“Has anyone else disappeared since the lights started?” he had asked, once he'd found his voice.

“Not for this long,” Cecilia had said, “but there are the instances of missing time you were looking at.”

Right, of course. Ryan could have smacked himself. Everyone in the room was patiently waiting for him to get his shit together, drinking their tea casually. “Aren't any of you _worried?_ “ he asked, a vague tinge of unease colouring his voice. “Two kids and a tourist just disappearing like this?”

“We've all long since learned that it doesn't do to fret,” Banjo said, setting his teacup down on the coffee table. “Wastes energy that could be put to better use.”

“Like what?” he'd asked.

“Like going and getting them back,” Shane had replied.

 _Shane_. Now _there_ was a surprise. The avowed skeptic, the man who barely believed in his own shadow, was a monster hunter?

Yep. He was. And he wasn't giving any more information than that, it would seem.

“So... How are we doing that? And how are we getting around the RCMP? Or do the RCMP know?” His brain had come back, slowly but surely, and he'd turned into his regular bundle of questions.

“We don't go around the RCMP,” Cecilia had said, “we work with them.”

“It's a long-standing agreement,” Banjo had cut in, “dating from decades ago. We're a tiny town and we've always been weird – weirder than the RCMP can handle on a regular basis. They have more than enough to be dealing with, so ... we deal with Willow River. And we tell them when the threat is gone, and they don't ask too many questions.”

Ryan had shaken his head slowly. “But this is a missing persons case. Two _kids_ went missing. And someone from out of town. You can't hush this up.”

“No, we can't,” Banjo had agreed, “which is why we work fast. You ready for the hardest crash course you've ever had, Bergara?”

* * *

Three days later, after the RCMP had taken all their statements and cleared out of town, Ryan sure hopes he's ready. (“What do you say to the O'Meara's and the Sergios? Do they know?” “They don't. Neither family has been here long enough to know.” “So...” “They wait.” “God.”) He's standing in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the snow, in new winter gear – “You'll need something less bulky,” Cecilia had said, “let's go into Prince George.” – waiting for ... something. He wasn't sure what.

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, watching the trees. Andrew and Adam had dropped him off here, about a kilometre from town, with nothing but his weapons of choice and the promise that they'd have a hot dinner waiting for him when he got back.

It's cold. At least minus twenty-five, though standing in the middle of a forest clearing, knee-deep in snow, it's hard to tell really. He shivered once, shook himself, clapped his hands together, and thought about taking his gloves off. Why did he need his weapons? He thought it was a good question. He thought lots of his questions were good questions, but nobody seemed to want to answer any of them.

The next thought he has is cut off by something large and solid slamming into him from the side, and throwing him into the snow. He manages to tuck and roll at least halfway, and so he's not completely prone when his head snaps up and he scrapes at his face, pulling the snow away, looking for his attacker.

There's no-one there. Ryan's about to pull himself up and look, but then thinks better of it, and instead stays low, crouching in the snow. He looks around. It's still light out, thank God, and he sees the tracks of whatever it was that ran into him – or, well, he sees the trench in the snow from where they ran. Straight off past him. Hit and run, as it were.

He watches and waits, looking left and right, listening intently for anything at all. He hears a twig snap behind him, and he leaps aside, watching as something tall blurs past him into the trees on the other side of the clearing. He gets a flash of red on the top half just as whatever it is seems to ... leap into a tree.

He squints at it. It's good at hiding: the tree it's picked is just the right size and shape to hide itself in. He catches a glimpse of dark denim, maybe, along the bottom half. So: a person, then. A tall person, who's skinny enough to hide in a— _Shane._ The motherfucker was _Shane_.

“What the hell, Shane, are you wearing rocket boots or something?” he calls out, keeping his eyes on the figure mostly hidden in the tree.

Shane laughs, then slips down out of the tree and onto the ground. “Nope,” he calls, “no fancy rocket boots here, Bergara.”

“So what, are you Sonic the Hedgehog then?” He's still not taking his eyes off Shane, not a chance.

“What's the first rule of combat?” the other man calls, completely ignoring Ryan's question.

“I haven't got a fucking clue,” Ryan mutters, “I'm a film and journalism student, not a fucking martial artist.” He raises his voice. “I don't know— know thine enemy?”

“Good,” Shane replies. “What do you know so far?”

“You're goddamn fast,” Ryan replies immediately. “Faster than I can catch but not faster than I can dodge if I'm smart.”

Shane chuckles a little. “Good, good,” he says. “What's the plan?”

“Trick you if I can, outlast you if I can't,” Ryan reasons. “Depending on the resources available.”

“Excellent. Unfortunately for you, I doubt you'll be able to do either.”

“You cocky son-of-a—” Ryan is thrown sideways again. How Shane managed to move without Ryan seeing is beyond him, but it hardly matters. As Ryan flies into the snow, he makes a grab at Shane, trying to catch him around the torso, or at least snag his clothing.

He succeeds, and is dragged across the clearing roughly. He feels Shane's arms come under his own, and he's being lifted, and then thrown back into the center of the clearing, shortly followed by Shane, who pins him in the snow. Ryan can feel it melting down the back of his collar.

The fucker isn't even breathing hard. “What do you do if your enemy changes tactics?”

Ryan's _pissed_. “Fucking _improvise_ ,” he snarls, and rams his head up into Shane's smug face. He feels Shane's nose move, if not break, and he hears the tall man growl. He takes advantage of the moment to hook his leg around Shane's and shove and _twist_ , and suddenly their positions are reversed: Shane's on the ground and Ryan's on top of him. And, sure enough, Shane's nose is bleeding and it looks like he's got a split lip.

The growl must have been instinctive, however, because Shane's grinning fit to scare a small child. “Oh well _done_ , Ryan,” he says, spitting out blood, “no one's managed to do so well so quickly.”

Ryan huffs, breathing hard. “Yeah well,” he says, at a bit of a loss, “what am I supposed to be doing here?”

Shane's grin turns into a smirk, and Ryan is _almost_ fast enough, but instead of rolling off of Shane into the snow, he's launched across the clearing in an awkward spiral and lands, hard, in the snow.

“ _Ow_ ,” he grunts, “fucking _ow_...” But he hauls himself up, and looks around: no Shane. Back into the trees again, making use of his superspeed, however the fuck that works. “Are you a _superhero?_ “ he calls out. “Do those exist too?!”

“Nah,” comes a voice from behind him, unsettlingly close to Ryan's ear, “not so lucky as that.” Shane's right forearm is suddenly against Ryan's throat, pushing hard, and the other arm is reaching to grab Ryan's wrists— but Ryan's faster, this time, and he slips the garrote out from his sleeve and reaches up and behind him, looping the wire over Shane's head, twisting his body around in Shane's grip to cross the wires and then shove back, kicking at his knees.

The big man goes down with a surprised look on his face as his legs give out, and he falls to his knees and clutches at his throat, where Ryan's got the garrote tight enough to choke _just_ a little, and his arms ready to pull more if he needs to. They hold the position for one... two... three seconds... then Shane, who's beginning to turn red, slaps his thigh three times.

Ryan lets go of one end of the garrote, and the wire falls loose. He winds it up and sticks it in his pocket, and holds out his hand to Shane. Shane takes it and pulls himself to his feet with a cough, rubbing at his throat with his other hand. “Well done,” he says again, a little croaky, “well _done_.” He sounds genuinely impressed, and almost _proud_.

“So the initiation's, what, a hazing?” Ryan says, testily. “What happens to the folks who can't cut it?”

Shane shakes his head. “Nah. Not how it works. This is just a proficiency test of sorts. I'm one of our best hand-to-hand specialists, and ... well, let's just say I'm one of the more _surprising_ members. When we induct someone – which is rare – we need to know how they handle themselves in unfamiliar situations, with little to no intel, and an enemy who's unpredictable and smart. Basically: we toss you into a worst-case scenario and see how you do. We've never had someone _fail_ – but we've only ever had one other person _win_.”

“Who?” Ryan can't help himself. He has to ask.

Shane chuckles, still rubbing at the angry red line on his throat. “Can't tell you all our secrets _that_ quickly, Bergara.” He begins walking in the direction of town, and Ryan follows. “This little experiment lets us see what your strengths and weaknesses are, what you need the most help with, where you can help us, that sort of thing. Keeps everyone from wasting time – ours _and_ yours.”

“Makes sense,” Ryan says, nodding. “And? What'd you learn from little ol' me?”

Shane hums. “You think _fast_. You adapt quickly, and you improvise well. Even when you're pissed off, you can focus. You're analytical and logical, but you don't overthink. Also, you're good at using an enemy's natural advantages against them. Like my poor knees,” he says with a grimace.

Ryan feels his heart swell a little with pride. “And what do I need to work on?”

The other man snorts. “Well, I mean, if I had been _trying_...”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, rub it in, seriously, are you fucking Superman or something?”

He laughs. “Nah, that'd be boring. But you should see me and Adam spar someday. I've been told it's fun.”

Ryan furrows his brow in puzzlement. “Adam? Adam _Bianchi?_ The baker from the cafe? I know he was there last night but he's a literal cinnamon roll, and you're, like ... I don't even fucking know, the Sorcerer Supreme from Doctor Strange or something. Or Black Widow. Or—”

“Y'know,” Shane says, cutting him off, “I don't think I would have pegged you for a Marvel man.”

He laughs. “No? More DC?”

“Yeah, you kinda strike me as the Batman type. No, no, even better, the Riddler.”

“He's a villain!”

Shane's turn to laugh. “So?”

“I'll have you know I pride myself on having a _positive_ effect on the world, _mister_ Madej,” Ryan says.

Shane raises his eyebrows. “Oh, buddy, you're in for a wild ride, aren't you.”


	2. December 31, 2019 - January 1, 2020

Ryan sits at the bottom of the stairs leading into his basement, drinking from a small water bottle and watching the work going on in front of him. Most of the Willow Guard are in the process of finishing his half-started renovations: Francesca and Holly are installing cabinets and shelving along the walls, Steven and Shane are putting in a counter in the kitchenette, and Adam and Andrew are silently putting up the walls that will form the clean room. Banjo had just gone up the hidden freight elevator at the back to bring down the huge oak board table which Ryan had spotted in the old McVoy house only a few nights before.

He himself had only gotten as far as finishing the drywalling and painting down here, and he'd put up a long section of pegboard; the rest had been lingering in his blueprints collection while he tried to settle into town life and not seem too out of place. Best to work on his lair in bits and pieces. He'd planned to start installing the computer wall in the new year, once he had a bit more cash in hand, but when he'd mentioned his plans to Banjo during yet another briefing, Banjo's eyes had lit up and suddenly his basement was full of people and Dr. Phyr was saying that he'd have Rajwander over to help install the security system once all the work was done.

Now, there was money out of nowhere, and everything he'd planned – and a few things he hadn't – was just  _available_  to him. There was a shipment of servers due on Monday, plus a climate control system for the clean room he'd never even dreamed of having, and a fucking  _freight elevator_  had shown up overnight and when he'd tried to ask about it, Banjo had just shushed him.

"I think you're going to be quite the addition to our little team, Mr Bergara," the slightly grizzled man had said, his face serious but his eyes twinkling with … excitement? Ryan couldn't place it. "We might actually be able to properly go after these bastards now."

Ryan still hadn't gotten a proper briefing on who 'these bastards' were. His week so far had been spent in explanations of the bits of reality that folklore hadn't quite gotten right, a  _lot_  of reading, and a crash course in oh, hey, magic is real too. Not to mention the endless sparring. Ryan had quickly adapted to his chosen weapon – the garrote – and had added a heavy watchman's flashlight to his arsenal. He'd eschewed the offer of firearms, as he wasn't trained, but the steely look in Francesca's – and Cece's – eyes had told him that sooner or later he'd be learning to use them properly. Meanwhile, he was training in hand-to-hand with Shane, Francesca, and Cecilia, each of whom espoused  _very_  different fighting styles, and he was black and blue all over and ached like hell.

As such, he wasn't doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the renovation project: he was installing the framework for the computer wall, since he'd designed it himself and it wasn't worth explaining his shorthand to anyone else.

He finishes his water bottle and tosses it over onto the futon he'd moved down here when he couldn't be bothered to stash it anywhere else, and hears footsteps coming down the stairs. He turns, and sees the tall dustered form of Cecilia Tinsley coming down, a large box in her arms. Probably more books, if he had to bet. He stands and steps forward to clear her path.

She walks in, puts the box down near the futon – books indeed – and dusts her hands off, looking over at Ryan. "Most of these will be useful to you in the future, but the ones on the top you should read soon. Detailed accounts of the specimens found in the area over the years."

Ryan walks over to the box and reaches in, pulling out the top volume – it looks like a Moleskine journal before Moleskine was a company, a well-preserved small leather-bound notebook with a hand-stamped year in the corner, reading 1956. He flips it open and skims the first couple pages, noting the messy yet legible handwriting that looks to have been written with a fountain pen. The handwriting seems familiar somehow, but he brushes it off, reading a little bit about a nasty poltergeist occurrence which necessitated a—

He blinks. "Cecilia?"

"Yes?"

"Where's the town sanctum?"

"Oh!" She looks a little surprised. "Uh, I'm actually not sure. That reference shows up in some of the older records, I think it was just a safe house … the place in town with the best wards. There's no clear location given any time it's mentioned."

"Huh." Ryan looks back at the book. "Who wrote these?"

"No name," she replies, shrugging. "But they're the best records we've got. Incredibly detailed and they span from fifty-six to eighty-five."

"A book a year?" he says, kneeling beside the box to look through it. "Yeah, looks that way. … Oh, wow, there's three in eighty-two, and eighty-three, and … up to eighty-five. That's quite the spike."

"Mm hmm," Cecilia says. "A lot of shit went down in the early eighties here. I wasn't around then, too young – but Banjo was. He knows some of the stories in there firsthand."

Ryan looks up at her quizzically. "But he doesn't know who wrote them?"

She shakes her head. "Nope. Or, if he does, he's not telling."

"And we don't know who moved away or died in eighty-five who could possibly have been the recordkeeper, eh?" Ryan muses, running his fingers over the spines of the little journals. "No one's been here that long?"

"The church caretaker has," she says, "but he doesn't talk about this stuff much. Not since the mid-aughts." She sighs and looks at the ground. "Long story. Not the time."

Ryan frowns. "Okay, then topic change – when do I get to know what we're up against?"

Cecilia points at the books. "You read fast. That'll tell you a lot. I think Banjo wants to come up with a plan of attack in the next few days, once this place is done."

He looks around the room. "There's no way this is getting done in a few days, Cecilia."

She grins. "Oh yes it will, just you watch."

"It's humanly impossible," he protests.

She smiles. "Excellent choice of words."

He blinks. "… No way."

* * *

A few hours later finds the whole crew at the Sidekick, at the final day of Eugene's week-long Christmas/New Year's Ultimate Celebration. ("We used to party for days, back in ancient times," he'd explained to Ryan, "I'm just honouring our old traditions.") Champagne is flowing freely, along with every other kind of liquor imaginable, and Ryan is  _drunk_.

With the week he'd had, he reasons, he deserves a good drink. Or five. And Eugene made them  _strong_ , so he's leaning up against the monolithic bar and snacking on some frickin' amazing trail mix while nursing his sixth cocktail of the night and looking out across the dance floor.

Kelsey, the gregarious blonde bartender, is watching him from behind the counter, polishing a glass, keeping an eye on the patrons milling around the bar. It's twenty to three – not quite closing time, but just about last call, and people are beginning to file out, merrily dropping their spare change in the tip jar on their way by, laughing and dancing out into the snowy streets. "You look thoughtful, new guy," she says, nudging the bowl of trail mix closer to him. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"We don't have pennies anymore," he says, only slurring slightly. While his frat days were long behind him, Ryan still took a certain amount of pride in holding his liquor. "I dunno if these are worth a nickel." Also, he didn't know how much Kelsey knew.

Across the room, Jen's band was settling into their last set of the night, a lilting set of jazz ballads by the sounds of the opening chords. "That's funny," Ryan murmurs, "Jen doesn't sing jazz."

"Oh, no," Kelsey says, "Shane always sings on jazz nights, and Jen plays sax. You've not been here on a Wednesday night, eh?"

Ryan's stomach twirls uncomfortably. "Uh – no, I guess I haven't…"

Sure enough, the lanky bookstore owner and absolutely infuriating paradox of a man was extricating himself from the group he'd been dancing with, saying goodnight, heading over to the stage, taking the microphone.

"I've got you under my skin," Shane starts, twirling the mic cord around his wrist, "I've got you deep in the heart of me … so deep in my heart that you're really a part of me – I've got you under my skin."

Ryan grips his cocktail glass a little harder. He's way too drunk for this, way too drunk to confront the feelings he'd been steadily ignoring since he got to town.

"I'd tried so not to give in – and I said to myself: this affair, it never will go so well." Shane takes hold of the empty mic stand with his other hand, and he walks a little circle while singing, bringing the audience in. "But why should I try to resist when, baby, I know so well that I've got you under my skin?"

Ryan swallows, and sets the glass down on the counter; Kelsey surreptitiously slides it away, and replaces it with a glass of water. She knows this look – she knows it well.

"I'd sacrifice anything, come what might, for the sake of having you near – in spite of a warning voice that comes in the night and repeats, repeats in my ear: don't you know, you fool, you never can win?" Shane was singing to himself, it seemed, in the style of all good jazz singers, the easy way they draw you in, empathize with you by telling their own story. "Use your mentality – wake up to reality! And each time I do, just the thought of you makes me stop before I begin … 'cause I've got you under my skin." He trails off, holding the n as Jen takes over for a solo, and Ryan thinks that just for a second Shane looks in his direction.

The bar is still slowly emptying of patrons. It's a big place, but not so big that Ryan can't see the faint bruising around Shane's eyes, the leftover blood from when he'd nailed him in the face only a couple days ago. It seems to have healed fast, though, unless Shane's wearing makeup over it, which … which he must have been, Ryan thinks, no one heals that fast.

 _"It's humanly impossible,"_  he remembers saying. And then, _"Excellent choice of words."_   No …

"I would sacrifice anything, come what might, for the sake of having you near – in spite of a warning voice, that comes in the night and repeats, how it yells in my ear: don't you know, you fool?" Shane's loud, now, a measure of pain in his voice. "There ain't no chance to win! Why not use your mentality? Wake up, step up to reality! And each time I do, just the thought of you makes me stop just before I begin— because I've got you under my skin … yeah you grabbed me under my skin." He finishes on a low croon, looking out into the darkness of the bar – right, Ryan imagines, at him.

Couldn't be.

Ryan spends the next fifteen minutes staring, listening as Shane winds his way through  _The Shadow of Your Smile_  and  _The September of My Years_. He thinks about the sparring sessions he's had with Shane, compares them to the ones with Francesca, and Cecilia. Francesca's a boxer – not what he'd expected from the brawny woman, but while she was big and strong and hard-hitting, she was also precise and calculated; Cecilia, on the other hand, reminded him of Peggy Carter: an out-and-out brawler, no move too dirty, no improvised weapon off-limits. He'd ended up on the floor in thirty seconds the first time, Cece having stolen his own garrote and used it on him.

But however difficult training with them was, they were human. Humanly fast, hitting humanly hard, and the blows Ryan landed in return were still heavy bruises days later. Cecilia had had to beg off their session yesterday, after Ryan had inadvertently aggravated an old injury.

His sessions with Shane, on the other hand, hadn't gotten any more sensible. He was still holding his own, but he suspected it was because Shane was still  _playing with him_. He still couldn't see anything more than a blur when Shane ran; it was almost like he teleported around the ring. Shane hit  _hard_  and it still felt like he was pulling his punches; none of the hits Ryan managed to land had bruised for longer than a day or two, and they never seemed to  _hurt_  him as much as they should.

Up until now, Ryan had written it off to some sort of incredible training. Maybe even enhancements of some kind, after he'd read Dr. Phyr's absolutely terrifying book on twenty-first century cybernetics. Or even magic, once  _that_  had been revealed to him.

But now…

"One last one before Eugene kicks us all out," Shane says, breaking into Ryan's thoughts and causing a smattering of laughter among the remaining couple dozen patrons. Eugene, dressed in silver lamé and somehow making it look incredibly sexy, laughs the loudest and raises his glass towards the stage. "And how could I not send us off with the best late-night bar song ever crooned by Ol' Blue Eyes?"

The pianist begins to play, a gentle tickling of the keys, and Shane leans back on the mic stand slightly, looking up at the ceiling. "It's quarter to three," he murmurs into the mic, "there's no one in the place except you and me." There's a bit of applause; clearly a well-loved tune. "Set 'em up, Joe: I got a little story I think you should know … "

"We're drinkin', my friend, to the end … of a brief episode." He looks out over the crowd again, scanning, his sad eyes looking even sadder. "Make it one for my baby … and another one for the road." The sax comes in, just a tiny bit of background, before the pianist changes keys and Ryan feels his heartstrings tug. "I know the routine: put another quarter in the machine. I feel kinda bad … can't you make the music easy and sad?"

 _Yes,_  Ryan thinks,  _anything for you._  … where the hell were  _those_  thoughts coming from?

"I could tell you a lot," he continues, "but it's not in a gentleman's code… just make it one for my baby, and one more for the road."

Ryan swallows. He's drunk, he reminds himself, drunk as a skunk and he's been working hard and training daily. His brain's messed up, he's not … he's not thinking straight.

"You'd never know it, but buddy, I'm a kind of poet – and I got a lot of things I'd like to say," Shane sings, as the last few patrons are swaying to the music, happy and drunk on life, as if three people hadn't disappeared from their quiet little community a week earlier. "And if I'm gloomy, please listen to me … till it's talked away."

Ryan downs the last of the glass of water.  _This is insane,_  he thinks,  _absolutely insane._  He shakes his head.

"Well … that's how it goes," Shane continues, shrugging nonchalantly, "and Joe, I know you're gettin' anxious to close. Anyway, thanks for the cheer – I hope you didn't mind my bending your ear."

As if in response, everyone on the floor raises their glass. Clearly this is a tradition. Ryan wonders how long Shane's lived in Willow River. Everyone knows him, but then, everyone in Willow River knows everyone. … He pulls out his phone, and Googles the bookstore. Googles Shane. Starts skimming.

"But this torch that I found, it's gotta be drowned, or it's gonna explode…" Shane shakes his head wistfully. "Make it one for my baby … and another for the road."

As Shane tags the song out to the end, Ryan reads. There's not much: Alshaytania doesn't have more than a single outdated web page – he makes a note to volunteer his services – and Shane doesn't seem to have any social media presence. His name shows up a couple times in the Prince George Herald, mostly quotes about random community events. And a piece about the history of Willow River, where he's cited as a source.

Ryan skims the history piece, and his eyes catch on an old-ish picture as it loads. "Community potluck, 1965," reads the caption, and the picture shows a dozen people laughing and enjoying what looks like hot dogs and corn on the cob, very Atomic Age style, more like the fifties than the sixties.  _Rural Canada, though,_  he thought,  _there are still places that looks like the fifties…_

His eyes catch on the person serving the hot dogs. He's tall, with a bit of a hunch – broad shoulders, he thinks, but he's three-quarters to the camera and Ryan can't quite see his face … but that nose, that nose is unmistakable. That's a Madej.  _Can't be,_  Ryan thinks,  _that person's at least in their twenties, that would put him in his sixties now. Must be his dad…_

There's no listing of the people in the photo, as far as Ryan can tell, so he shakes it off and scrolls down a bit, until he stops at another photo, this one in sepia tone: it's a handwritten letter, dated in the thirties, and Ryan frowns at it – the way the writer scrawls their f's is unmistakable, it's the same writing as the journals Cecilia gave him, or at least very close.

Ryan's still scrolling through the webpage when he senses someone walking up to the bar. He looks up, and it's Shane: he comes straight to the bar, pulling out his wallet and settling his tab with Kelsey before bidding her goodnight. As he turns, he catches Ryan's eye, grins in that crinkly way of his, and says "good night, Ryan," before sticking his hands in his pockets – he still hasn't got a coat – and heading out the door.

Ryan realises his mouth has been hanging open awkwardly when Kelsey says, "Hey," and he turns to her and shuts his mouth automatically. "Yeah?" he says, shaking himself a little.

Kelsey smirks. "I hear drunk minds speak sober thoughts," she says, raising an eyebrow, and then, "he's single, and has been as long as I've known him."

Ryan swallows. "I, uh, I'm…"

Kelsey shoos him out. "Go on, go catch him, it's New Year's Eve and you didn't kiss anyone at midnight."

Ryan's too flustered to think as he grabs his coat and leaves the bar, leaving Kelsey a twenty on the bartop on his way out, and then he's out on Main Street, the streetlights casting orange on the white snowbanks and the purple sky wheeling above him. Alshaytania's barely a couple buildings down the street, so by the time he's crossed the street Shane's already in the front door: he can see the tall silhouette just behind the handwritten sign on the glass proclaiming the holiday hours in his messy handwriting: "Alshaytania will close at five PM for…"

… The f's.

Ryan pulls out his phone and holds it up to the door, zooming in on the letter from the history site. It's identical. Not only the looped f, but the curve of the z, the angle of the e, the extra loop in the s – all identical.

He looks up, and catches Shane's silhouette turning away from the door, probably taking off his shoes – and the three-quarter profile reminds him so very much of the picture from the barbecue that his heart is in his throat.  _These are coincidences,_  he thinks to himself,  _his family's lived here for generations, they're inherited traits._

 _And the superspeed? The increased healing?_  his brain chimes in.  _Are those inherited, too?_

Were those things that could be inherited? Ryan didn't know how that worked. Shane had never mentioned any family, but that didn't mean he didn't have any.

Shane's silhouette disappears into the bookshop, leaving Ryan standing on the step. He bites his lip, then Googles Canadian census records: the latest publicly available records are 1921, it's a hell of a long shot and it wouldn't  _really_  prove anything, but …

"Madej, Shane A, age 30, British Columbia, Willow River, head of household, born in Krakow, Polish … bookstore owner," he mutters, "Good God." He rests his forehead against the cold glass of the door. Family-owned business, he could have his great-grandfather's name. This didn't prove anything. It didn't. It  _didn't_.

He stands up, and knocks on the door.

It isn't more than a few seconds before the silhouette returns, and the door opens, and Shane is looking down at him. "I wondered if you were going to stand on my doorstep all night," he says, an amused smile on his face. "What can I do for you, Ryan?"

Ryan freezes. He hasn't thought this through. "I think you're immortal. Or at the very least you're way older than you look and so you're probably not human. And I think you're the one who wrote all those journals but I don't know if anyone else knows or if it's another secret I'm not supposed to know yet. Also, I'm pretty sure you were singing to me but I'm also really drunk and I'm also pretty sure at least some part of my brain thinks you're incredibly hot so I might just be making that up out of wishful thinking, but I haven't figured that part out yet and in fact I haven't figured out any of this because Eugene makes  _really_  strong drinks and I haven't been this drunk in years, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it and  _oh God I've been saying all of this out loud, haven't It?"_

He realizes what he believed to be inner monologue most definitely was not, as Shane's eyebrows have lifted as high as they'll go, and Ryan slaps his hand over his mouth for a moment of utter horror before croaking out: "Oh God, Shane, I'm so sorry, I am  _so_  drunk, forget any of this happened, I'm rambling, I don't make any sense, I—"

He's about to turn and leave when Shane puts his hand on Ryan's shoulder. "How drunk  _are_  you, Ryan?" he asks, slowly, searching Ryan's face.

Ryan swallows. "Two of the IPAs Eugene had on special, a double Caesar, two Long Island iced teas, and an old-fashioned. … With trail mix. Over … some hours."

Shane nods. "Drunk enough that you're probably not going to remember most of this. Okay." He squints. "You're very coherent for that amount of liquor."

Ryan attempts a grin. "I was a frat boy."

Shane looks like he's caught between a smirk and something a little more apprehensive. "… Ah. So you  _will_  remember most of this."

Ryan shrugs. "Bit of a toss-up honestly."

Shane appears to deliberate for a moment before asking, "How did you figure it out?"

"Figure what out? That you're not human?"

"Mm."

The non-committal noise didn't really answer Ryan's question, but he presses on. "You're too fast. You hit too hard and you heal too fast. Also, I think I found you in a picture from the sixties, and it's your writing in the records Cecilia gave me, and there's a letter with that writing from the thirties, too, and I found you in the twenty-one census."

Shane steps back, opening the door, and Ryan steps in. "And there's no way you're … " He does the math in his head. "Jesus  _Christ_ , a hundred and twenty-eight years old." He falters, bracing himself against the doorframe, and Shane instinctively grabs his right arm to steady him. "There's no way. Unless you were named after your great-grandfather and the Madejs have always owned a bookstore here in town, but there's almost no record of you or the store anywhere, and…"

Shane gently pulls him into the store as he rambles. He sees the spines of books go by, and notices they're getting older. Very old.  _Impossibly_  old. "Shane, these books are centuries old. Why are you running a rare book repository in northern BC? What are you? Why are you here? Did you really come from Poland? Why does no one suspect that you've been here forever? You have been, haven't you? Why did you sing to me? How long have you been thirty? Why is the starting to sound like  _Twilight_?"

He pauses and jerks back, looking up at Shane, eyes wide. "Oh my God, are you a vampire? Holy shit, I—" He tries to move away, but realizes he's in a tiny little alcove of books and it seems to be going up, into the ceiling. He instinctively covers his head, ducking away, closing his eyes, but then— nothing seems to happen, he's not squished into the books, so he opens his eyes.

He immediately closes them again, then reopens them, and gapes. He's standing in what looks like a Greco-Roman corridor of archways, light streaming in from all sides, everything surreally white. "No, this is like  _American Gods_ , we're backstage, you're some sort of Polish spirit of god or demi-god or something." Shane's walking away from him down the corridor, and he still hasn't said anything, so Ryan follows him, still talking, unable to stop. "You're, like, some sort of guardian for the town, aren't you? Or are you the source of everything?  _Holy shit,_  am I one of the ones who's found out and now you're taking me away to kill me to keep the secret or feed you or something? Is there a cult of Madej? Where does your power come from?  _What are you?"_

They're standing at the edge of an amphitheatre of pillows, surrounded by archways, and Shane turns to him again, holding out his hands. "Do you trust me?" he asks, his hands out, palm up.

"No," Ryan says, "how could I," but he's placing his hands in Shane's without a second thought, staring up into eyes that he would swear are getting darker, and then the world is gone.

A moment of darkness, the only point of contact Shane's too-warm skin on Ryan's flushed and sweating palms, and then everything is sharp colours and screaming lights and pain. Ryan cries out in anguish, and feels something like thousands of pieces of camera film brush against his back as the light show is blotted out, and then darkness returns for another blissful moment.

Everything pops back into existence, and Ryan's mind whirls in confusion as he sees nebulae, galaxies, quasars spinning under his feet and over his head. "What the fuck," he breathes, "what the  _fuck_ , what the  _fuck._ "

Shane clears his throat, and Ryan realizes there's a person in front of him – Shane's in front of him. Very close to him, in fact; Ryan's not sure how he didn't seem him before, because Shane takes up most of his field of vision. He looks mostly the same, except for— "Your eyes," Ryan murmurs, "they're made of stars." And then— "you have  _wings,_  Shane."

"Yes," Shane says, and his voice is different too, there's a depth and breadth to it, like a reverb in Ryan's soul, "I do. This… is one of the secrets that usually gets kept for a  _long_  time, but— mm!" His sentence is cut off as Ryan steps forward and presses his lips to Shane's. Shane's clawed fingers are up in Ryan's hair and his wings are curling around them before he comes to himself, pulls back, and looks at Ryan, one hand on either side of his face. "Ryan, you don't even know what I am, this is going awfully fast even for a human."

Ryan grins, his hands splayed across Shane's chest. "You're a demon," he says, matter-of-factly, and pulls himself up to kiss Shane again, this time along his stubbled jawline. "That's easy."

Shane blinks, the starfields in his eyes momentarily – and disorientingly – covered. "How did you…"

Ryan slips a hand up into Shane's hair. "No halo." He presses a kiss to Shane's cheek. "Also, the claws."

"You're far too smart for your own good," Shane murmurs, and then he wraps his wings around them both and kisses back.

The quasars spin on below them.


	3. January 1, 2020

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan wakes up with a hangover and a demon.

Ryan wakes up slowly, his head pounding. His headache’s so strong that his vision’s blurry, it looks like there’s stars whirling around him, and the  _colours_ , they’re so bright. He squeezes his eyes shut and focuses, breathing slowly, trying to at least get the pounding in his brain under control.  He can’t feel his sheets, or his pillow. Is he still dreaming? He feels something very warm up against his back, and… arms around his waist, and… soft breath on the top of his head. Did he go home with someone last night? But who …

He feels something soft brush against his forearm, which is crossed over his chest; whatever it is feels sort of like tin foil, but softer, and smoother, more like tinsel on incredibly smooth petals of glass. One of the hands of whoever’s holding him tightens a little around his upper arm, and he feels their nails press into his skin, except they’re not nails, they’re more like claws—

Everything comes rushing back and he takes a deep breath. Shane. Immortal. Crazy interdimensional outer space.  _Demon._

Oh, and Ryan had been so damn drunk that he’d blurted everything in one stupid confession and then  _kissed_  the man, Jesus Christ, what was wrong with him? He takes another deep breath and opens his eyes again, the pounding in his head getting faster, along with his heart rate. The incomprehensible galaxies spinning before him make him feel sick, and he groans.

Shane’s dull claws slip up Ryan’s arm into his hair, and knead gently into his scalp. It feels like heaven, as odd of a mixed metaphor as that may be. “Good morning sunshine,” he murmurs, the deep rumble in his voice vibrating through Ryan’s chest.

Ryan attempts to say good morning in return, but just mumbles something unintelligible instead, and turns around in Shane’s arms, nestling in against his broad,  _far_  too warm chest… which is still clothed, he realizes, as he catches his nose on a button. “Ow,” he mutters.

He also realizes that he’s completely clothed, too, which is not typically how he ends up after going home with someone— though he supposes that going to an interdimensional rift in space isn’t usually how his one-night stands go, either. He peers up at Shane, who looks positively normal from this angle: scruffy beard, sharp jawline, broad shoulders … huge wings arcing up from behind his shoulder blades. Right. Wings. That’s what he’d felt on his arm, just a moment ago.

Shane looks down at him, and Ryan’s heart jumps as he sees, once again, the eyes full of starfields. “Sleep well?” Shane asks, smiling gently.

Ryan brings a hand up to rub at his eyes. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “I … I feel like I have a lot to apologize for.”

Shane shakes his head. “Nah,” he replies, “you didn’t find anything out that wasn’t already in plain sight. Plus— “ he grins then, the corners of his eyes crinkling around their deep oceans of space and his teeth showing, gleaming slightly in the starlight as Ryan’s brain jumped to  _far too sharp, run away_  but the warmth in Shane’s face belied the danger— “I coulda just not answered the door.”

“I guess so,” Ryan replies. “So … how much of what I guessed last night was true?” 

Shane looks up at the stars, thinking. “…Most of it. How long have I been thirty, though, well – I’m effectively timeless, so that’s a moot point.”

Ryan snorts. “Even when you’re living proof of the supernatural you’re still an anal nitpicking freak. Shoulda known.”

Shane looks back at him and grins, showing those razor-sharp teeth again. “You know it, little buddy.”

Shane makes a move to release Ryan from his wings, but Ryan nestles closer. “Nope. Not done cuddling. Also, you should keep doing that thing with your claws … God, that’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d say.”

The claws return to massaging Ryan’s head gently, and the wings tighten back around him. “Well then, consider  _me_  told,” Shane says, chuckling.

“Is there … anything else I should know?” Ryan asks, after a quiet moment of enjoying the closeness. “I mean – don’t share anyone else’s secrets if you don’t want to, but… about you.”

“How do you mean?” Shane asks in return. “What do you want to know?”

Ryan thinks. “… Does everyone else know you’re a demon?”

“The Willow Guard does,” he confirms, “but the everyday citizens of the town? No. I’m just Shane Madej the bookstore owner.”

“But you’ve been here for generations. Why doesn’t anyone notice?” Ryan frowns.

Shane shrugs. “Most people don’t look near so closely as you do, and they don’t connect the dots. They’re far more likely to believe I’m named after my great-grandfather, and that’s my dad in that photo, and I just don’t contradict them. I  _do_  have a low-grade memory ward set on myself, though … just enough of a suggestion field that I can easily convince someone that oh yes, my father owned the store before me, and his father before him, we’ve been here since the town was founded, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Surely that still carries some risk. What happens if someone finds out?”

“Three possibilities,” he replies.  “First, they may well get inducted into the Willow Guard. Second, they’re the sort of person the Willow Guard takes an active dislike to. Third, I can always wipe and implant more convenient memories.”

“That strikes me as awfully unethical,” Ryan says, his frown deepening.

Shane raises an eyebrow. “You’re not wrong, but, well, that’s not  _always_  something I can afford to take into consideration. I have enough blood on my hands that a couple altered memories really aren’t going to tip the scales for me.”

Ryan pauses, doesn’t answer for a moment.

Shane sighs, and his face falls. “I know what you’re thinking, Ryan, so go ahead and say it.”

He bites his lip, looks up at Shane, then away again. “…Do I want to know what sort of things you’ve done?”

“Probably not,” Shane replies, simply. “Most people don’t.”

“…Is it going to eat away at me until I ask, and make things worse, and whatever  _this_  is won’t get off the ground as a result?” Ryan asks, sardonically. “Putting aside the fact that there’s no ground here, wherever we are.”

“I can’t say,” Shane says levelly. “This particular situation hasn’t come up in a very long time.”

“Fuck me,” Ryan says with a groan.

Shane’s face twists in a desperate attempt to not make the worst joke possible at this precise moment; Ryan, of course, catches the mad facial gymnastics, and rolls his eyes, snickering.  “I, ah,” Shane says with an amused smile, seeing that Ryan’s caught him out, “I don’t think that’d be the way to go.”

Ryan plays along, slipping his hands under Shane’s shirt and running his fingertips along his ribs. “You sure? Nothing for a budding relationship like completely ignoring the potential pitfalls, am I right? Wanna show me what demon dick looks like?”

Shane twists slightly under Ryan’s hands, blushing faintly. “It’s, uh, well, it’s whatever I want it to be, you’re— you’re technically incapable of grasping my true— oh  _fuck_  did I honestly just use the word  _grasping_?” He groans.

Ryan throws his head up and laughs. “ _Oh my God,_  Shane, you  _did_.”

Shane, blushing furiously now, hides his head in the crook of Ryan’s neck. “ _Ugh_ , I haven’t been this far gone for someone in  _centuries_ , the things you do to me…”

Ryan chuckles, slipping his arms around Shane, tucking them underneath the wing joints and marveling at the feel of them. “Not a ladies’ man, then? Or a man’s man, I guess?”

He huffs. “Preferences aside, seeing as I can’t share my true self with but the tiniest fraction of beings in the entirety of creation, and most of the ones who’d get it aren’t super interested in a relationship with a  _demon_ , no.”

Ryan hums under his breath. “Ah. I’m sorry, Shane.”

A shake of his head, hair brushing Ryan’s neck. “No need to apologize. Unless you’re apologizing for being so damn irresistible,” he adds, poking Ryan in the side gently.

“I don’t think I have a lot to do with that, really,” Ryan muses, “so I don’t think I can apologize for it. That being said … ”  He pulls back, and Shane lets him: he looks up at his friend’s star-filled eyes, and smiles a little crookedly. “I feel like this is kinda beating a dead horse, but I wanna be sure. Would you do me the honour of dating me, Shane?”

Shane grasps Ryan’s shoulders, his wings retracting to rest on his own back. “Even knowing I’m effectively immortal, culpable of atrocities you can’t even imagine, and … and everything being a demon entails?”

Ryan raises a hand to Shane’s face, stroking his cheek gently. “Shane, I don’t have the most experience in the world, but … I think I’m in love with you. And even if this somehow ends up being the most cliché-ridden, ultimately painful, Harlequin-esque romance in existence, I … if you’re willing to be with little ol’ human Ryan Bergara, I’d like to spend whatever time I can with you, demon or not. You just …  _feel right._ ” 

Shane laughs, soft and deep. “Well mark me down as a hopeless romantic too, then, because I’ve known you for, what, three weeks? Four? And despite that, I’m pretty sure my ancient, ultra-cynical ass is in love with you too.” His next chuckle sounds a little watery, and he cups the side of Ryan’s face in his clawed, long-fingered hand. “I don’t deserve you.”

Ryan lets his hand fall from Shane’s face to the hand on his cheek, holding it gently. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how love works, you big dork,” he whispers, staring into Shane’s eyes.

This time it’s Shane who initiates the kiss: no longer able to form words, he leans in and sweeps Ryan up against him with his wings, and the soft glittering sound of metal and glass fills the air, like the gentlest of wind chimes.


End file.
